The Kiltartan History Book eBook

that to pay what I owe you.’ The second
day he did the same thing in another house. And
in the third house they went to he ordered ten pounds
worth of food and drink in the same way. And
when the time came to pay, he struck the table with
the hat, and there was the money in the hand of the
man of the house before them. ‘That’s
a good little caubeen,’ said the Scotch rogue,
’when striking it on the table makes all that
money appear.’ ‘It is a wishing hat,’
said the Goban; ’anything I wish for I can get
as long as I have that.’ ‘Would you
sell it?’ said the Scotch rogue. ‘I
would not,’ said the Goban. ’I have
another at home, but I wouldn’t sell one or
the other.’ ’You may as well sell
it, so long as you have another at home,’ said
the Scotch rogue. ’What will you give for
it?’ says the Goban. ‘Will you give
three hundred pounds for it?’ ’I will
give that,’ says the Scotch rogue, ’when
it will bring me all the wealth I wish for.’
So he went out and brought the three hundred pound,
and gave it to the Goban, and he got the caubeen and
went away with it, and it not worth three halfpence.
There was no beating the Goban. Wherever he got
it, he had got the gift.”

THE DANES

“The reason of the wisps and the fires on Saint
John’s Eve is that one time long ago the Danes
came and took the country and conquered it, and they
put a soldier to mind every house through the whole
country. And at last the people made up their
mind that on one night they would kill its soldiers.
So they did as they said, and there wasn’t one
left, and that is why they light the wisps ever since.
It was Brian Boroihme was the first to light them.
There was not much of an army left to the Danes that
time, for he made a great scatter of them. A great
man he was, and his own son was as good, that is Murrough.
It was the wife brought him to his end, Gormleith.
She was for war, and he was all for peace. And
he got to be very pious, too pious, and old and she
got tired of that.”

THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF

“Clontarf was on the head of a game of chess.
The generals of the Danes were beaten at it, and they
were vexed; and Cennedigh was killed on a hill near
Fermoy. He put the Holy Gospels in his breast
as a protection, but he was struck through them with
a reeking dagger. It was Brodar, that the Brodericks
are descended from, that put a dagger through Brian’s
heart, and he attending to his prayers. What the
Danes left in Ireland were hens and weasels.
And when the cock crows in the morning the country
people will always say ’It is for Denmark they
are crowing. Crowing they are to be back in Denmark.’”

THE ENGLISH

“It was a long time after that, the Pope encouraged
King Henry to take Ireland. It was for a protection
he did it, Henry being of his own religion, and he
fearing the Druids or the Danes might invade Ireland.”